April 14, 2012

a tale of poppies and golf balls

Thursday afternoon was blustery--not quite conditions conducive to wildflower photography. I opened the lens wide and practiced, once again, my hand-held snap-shooter technique.

click photo for full-size imagephoto by Donald Kinney

So, I don't want to get distracted by explaining my Photoshop technique on this image--but to summarize, I "squashed" the image top-to-bottom with Photoshop's "Content-Aware" tool. Those hills are actually twice as high as they appear. Why (do such a dumb thing)? For more emphasis on the lichen and poppy. I'm also employing a narrower aspect-ratio, suggested to me by well known photographer, Brooks Jensen.

But getting back to what I was meaning to say... Here's the deal...

There I was, squatting down for my shot at a delightful vantage point high above "Big Rock" at the top of Lucas Valley, and right in front of me is one golf-ball. And then over there another, and another, and pretty soon I have 34 golf-balls in the oversized pockets of photo-shooter's vest. And they're all in perfect shape, as far as I can tell. 34 so far, and there's probably a few more. My theory is that someone was hitting a few balls from that scenic spot, got tired of the activity, and just dumped the huge stash of golf-balls.

click photo for full-size imagephoto by Donald Kinney

Sending a big s h o u t - o u t to my buddy SF Mike
Well, a while back I mentioned that I had occasionally been finding golf-balls along one particular stretch of my beloved Lagunitas Creek. I brought one home for my beloved Kitty one day but she showed little interest. I SHOULD have been picking the balls up all of these years because by now I would have quite a collection. But I've started collecting in earnest once again--so far I had 4 "creek" golf-balls saved for my buddy SF Mike (a.k.a. Michael Strickland). And 4 + 34 = 38. That ought to keep Mike and his golfing friends swinging for a while! I don't see a brand on the balls, but most of them say "soft-core" and are printed with three black bands.

2 comments:

Dear Donald: Ginny's right, they are range balls which means you're not supposed to play with them on a "real" golf course. Doesn't matter. I'll still take them. Also have 52 DVDs for you, the entire season of FotoTales. Give me a ring or an email and we'll make a switch. My Silicon Valley job just ended yesterday.